Kriti Mehrotra
With Showtime’s ‘Waco: The Aftermath’ living up to its title in every way imaginable, we get a five-part miniseries that can only be described as equal parts bewildering, gripping, and haunting. After all, it gives us a complete insight into the precise events to have transpired following the disastrous 51-day 1993 siege by the ATF against members of the Texan Branch Davidian sect. Amongst them was actually Livingstone Fagan — so now, if you simply wish to learn more about him, his background, his experiences, as well as his current standing, we’ve got you covered.
Who is Livingstone Fagan?
Although Livingstone was born in Jamaica in 1959, he primarily grew up in the UK since his family had chosen to relocate in the hopes of better opportunities when he was merely five in 1964. He thus graduated from a local high school in Nottingham before enrolling at Manchester University to pursue a Bachelor’s in environmental science, just to end up meeting his wife there as well. The couple subsequently tied the knot, settled down, and welcomed two loving daughters into their lives, all the while the former sought to join the Seventh-Day Adventist ministry for himself.
The truth is Livingstone was attending the Newbold College of Higher Education to achieve his goals by the time 1988 rolled around, which is when he met charming sect leader David Koresh. The two only spoke for a few hours, but it was enough for the former to convert into a Branch Davidian — though he still completed his education in 1989 prior to interning in a Leicester church. However, his pastor license was revoked once his true beliefs came to light, driving him to move to the Mount Carmel Center in Waco in 1992, along with his wife, mother, kids, as well as a sister.
According to reports, Livingstone was an extremely bright biblical scholar whose role in the compound was essentially to spread David’s theology, yet it ended with him having a gun in hand. He actually admittedly fired at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents during their failed attempt to serve a warrant against the latter on firearm charges on February 28, 1993. The ensuing nearly three-hour shootout fortunately didn’t injure him or his family, but alas, he did ultimately lose his wife and his mother on the final day of the siege — in the enigmatic April 19 fire.
Livingstone as well as his girls had already left the compound by this point owing to the intense FBI negotiations going on — they’d exited on March 23, 1993, unaware they’d never return again. Nevertheless, the former was almost immediately taken into custody as a material witness, just for him to soon be charged in connection to the botched raid resulting in the deaths of four federal agents. The counts of murder, conspiracy, and weapon use were then corroborated by a fellow agent identifying him as a shooter from a lineup before a former Branch Davidian testified against him.
Livingstone Fagan is an Author and Public Figure Now
Livingstone was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter and using a firearm during the commission of an offense, for which he was later sentenced to a total of 40 years behind bars. He actually did not appeal his conviction in any way, shape, or form, yet a federal judge still reduced his serving time to 30 years in 2000 once the case of Branch Davidians landed on his desk. Regardless, upon paying a $5,000 fine, the father of two merely spent about half his penalty in prison before being released and deported back to his homeland of Britain for good in July 2007.
Since then, it appears as if Livingstone has resettled in Nottingham, from where he serves as an author and a public figure — he often writes on religion while also partaking in several interviews. From what we can tell, he himself still believes in the Branch Davidian theology, which is why he penned ‘Mt. Carmel: The Unseen Reality’ in 1994, ‘The Gift of Immortality’ in 2013, ‘A Door Opened in Heaven: Understanding the Revelation’ in 2014, and ‘Understanding Waco & Salvation’ in 2017. The now mid-60-year-old has also proudly contributed a chapter to the 2013 book ‘Prophecy in the New Millennium: When Prophecies Persist.’
Read More: Clive Doyle: How Did the Waco Survivor Die?
